Repression
by Diritus
Summary: Kabuto struggles with his intense desires and particular fetishes. His obsession with Orochimaru is crippling, particularly when Orochimaru seems hellbent on making the situation worse. He knows he must maintain his professionalism and continue his duties day after day, but his desires soon prove to have adverse effects on him, leaving him a mental and emotional mess. R&R?
1. Behind Closed Doors

The room was so empty and uninviting that it seemed to drop a few degrees just from how abandoned it felt. There were basic grey sheets on the bed, a desk with all of it's papers and pens carefully locked away in the drawers where they belonged rather than resting on top of it. A simple bookshelf was filled end to end with heavy worded texts documenting rare accounts of illnesses that ranged from the mundane to those so rare that they had yet to earn a name. Only the bottom shelf held any sort of variance or color to it. This low shelf, one that most would ignore and wouldn't be easily viewable when standing in the room, contained mostly paperbacks with curiously suggestive titles. Most of the bindings were black with some sort of unique lettering, their looping quality teasingly hinting at the sensual nature of their content.

It was to this shelf that Kabuto turned his attention to. The day was winding to a close, Orochimaru having dismissed him from the labs, stating that they both needed rest. The door was closed and locked. Kabuto's bare feet rested on the cold wooden floor as he knelt, looking over the well worn bindings that resided on the most hidden of his shelves. This particular collection had taken him just as long to collect as the medicinal texts that rested above them, being of a very specific sub-genre of an already taboo subject. Erotica in and of itself did little for Kabuto. It took something a bit darker to catch his eye, something...clinical.

He pulled one from near the corner, one that was always a stable of his recreational time. He turned on the lamp that rested on the desk, casting light indirectly around the room before shutting off the overhead. Moving to the bed, he set the book down and began to undress. He removed each piece of clothing individually, carefully setting them in the corner to be taken to the laundry in the morning. He left on only his shirt, preferring to sleep with it on to keep his chest and stomach warm, especially before picking up one of those books. He pulled his hair free of it's ponytail, letting the frayed mess that it contained fan itself around his neck and shoulders. If it didn't irritate the back of his head, he would have slept with his hair tied back, not liking how it felt as it brushed and ticked the soft flesh it touched.

Without moving the covers, Kabuto picked up the book and laid down on the bed, his body situated so that his shoulder and head were raised by the pillow and headboard, a good position for reading while laying down, a position he was so used to, his body automatically positioned itself there when coming to bed. From here, he was able to flip to one of the many dog-eared pages that marked the only points in the book he cared about. He couldn't be bothered getting to know whatever shallow, half-baked characters the author invented nor the convoluted plot that would inevitable lead to those marked pages. The writers and readers both knew what it was they were looking for, and so those were the parts that he concerned himself with.

Kabuto's poison of choice was something he was all too familiar with. He wasn't excited by two bodies acting on carnal desire. No, he wasn't some lower ape that could manage to find art in something so instinctive. What excited him, what made his heart race and fingertips twitch with barely restrained want was nothing less than cold steel. His setting of choice, a sterile OR with a well restrained subject. His tools of choice were not the common silicone based toys that every run of the mill porno featured, but a neatly arranged array of scalpels, forceps, and spreaders, each sterilized to a shining finish. Latex was not something worn on the genitals, but worn as gloves. These medical room fantasies of his were always carefully elaborate, structured, and detailed as anything he thought on was. They would play out with him knowing exactly what route to take from start to finish, each move as planned as an operation he had spent weeks preparing for.

His vast medical knowledge made these fantasies exquisite, but there was a downside as well. It seemed that anyone who tried to write out fantasies of a similar nature had no background in medicine at all. The realism was too often ruined for him whenever the author would include something absurd or guessed at. The terminology would be wrong, the tools used would be improper, and that would be the end of it. That was why his collection was so rare. These texts were tried and true, ones that kept the reality of it close enough that he could lose himself in the thoughts of the light dazzling off of the instruments as the patients observed with wide eyes, first in fear, then ecstasy. The one he read from now in particular was divine in its realism, noting even the dosage of each drug administered to properly incapacitate the patient.

He read over one of the shorter instances, his eyes slowly reading the passage, carefully absorbing each word and forming an image in mind to match. A hand slid down his body, letting his fingertips trace along his stomach and hips, teasing himself with their cool touch before taking hold of himself. Reading was only ever preparation for him, the touching he did only there to stimulate an erection, not proceed towards climax, and as such seemed lazy and half hearted. The text was used to invoke his mind, getting it to create vividly the images on the page before tasking it with creating images purely from his own thoughts and scraps of memory.

As the scene drew to an end, he closed the book, setting it on the far side of the bed from where he lay. Now that his body and mind was warmed up, he could proceed. He slouched down a bit, letting his head rest more on the pillow, his eyes falling shut, the hand that gripped himself still repeating the same slow movement of his wrist. He could now open his mind to his own personal stock of fantasies and stir into them his own personal fetish.

His thoughts turned almost immediately to his personal lab where most of his day was spent when dealing with live patients. It was no longer a generic lab, but one he was familiar with. He knew what lived on each of the shelves, knew exactly how worn each notch on the leather restraints was, letting him estimate the average size of the patients he worked on, at least the ones that struggled. His personal cart was loaded with tools that he knew intimately. The curve of each of those tools was so familiar he could almost feel them between his fingers just at the thought. They were well broken in, but maintained in top condition, each blade keeping a cutting edge sharp enough to split hairs.

Before him on the gurney he had often worked at was the item of his obsession, the link in the fantasy that transcended just a medical fetish. He thought of the body that he was so drawn to, the pale flesh raised to goosebumps from the cold of the gurney. The nude body a canvas on which he was allowed to work. This time, this fantasy would have his eyes closed, unconscious and unaware. He spent what seemed hours on recalling the exact details of the body he so longed for, detailing every shadow cast by muscles and ligaments anchoring to bone, covered with ivory flesh. He recalled the gentle yet defined curve of bone that protruded from his wrists, ankles, and when lying on his back, pelvic bones. He noted how his waist curved inwards, accentuating his thinness and contrasted by outward curve of his hips.

Kabuto, in this situation, had an unlimited amount of time to do as he pleased, and as such, picked his favorite tool first. The scalpel gleamed as he looked it over, catching his own reflection in the blade before moving it towards the flesh that he knew would part so easily. His first cut was a vertical cut that split the dermis, revealing the sinistral exterior oblique. The flesh parted easily, splitting with a smooth resistance that was unique to itself. The blood began to flow, thick and glistening. It enthralled his mind, his eyes locked on each shift in the flow, on each rivulet that ran down to the curve of his back, pooling on the steel beneath. He made a cut to mach on the dexterous side, watching with the same interest as the skin parted and bled.

His hand continued to move, no longer the lazy motion of preparation, but of someone seeking an end for themselves. His back was arched, the muscles in his shoulders tense. His head was now pressed tight against the pillow, teeth clenched, breath escaping in shuddering exhales as he fought to not make a sound. He was easy this time, not having to delve too far into the fantasy before his end came about. His toes curled, knees bending slightly as he betrayed himself, making a stifled moan through his clenched teeth. Every fiver of himself seemed to constrict, curling himself inward a bit before completely relaxing, soaking in the rush of endorphins that flooded his system. It came over him in a wave that always reminded him of addiction, the fix that a junkie needs to keep themselves stable, and he knew that the two sensations were one and the same on many different levels.

Finally regaining his composure, he took the paperback, returning it to the bottom shelf in its assigned spot. He pulled open one of his desk drawers and retrieved a tissue from it, cleaning any and all evidence of his actions from his body and making sure that none remained on his blanket either before tossing the used tissue in the wastebasket under the desk, hidden away from any prying eyes. Pulling away the blanket now, he slid into his bed, getting comfortable before riding the calming wave of orgasm into a black sleep, his round frame glasses still perched on his nose, long forgotten about in his tangled desires.


	2. A Domestic Matter

Morning came swiftly, the staccato beeping of his alarm pulling Kabuto from a black sleep. A loose hand slipped out from under the sheets, depressing the button that would silence the noise. His eyes slid open rather easily, having always found himself a fast riser. The world tried to come into focus, but he found that no matter how much he blinked, the room was still blurred, seemingly full of sleep still. It was only after he sat up that he realized his glasses were still on his face, and had pressed against his face during the night, leaving oil smudges from his cheeks and lids on the clear glass.

He removed them, wiping them on his shirt until they no longer bore the streaks of oil that would distort whenever he happened to look at a light. If there was one thing that got on his nerves, it was smudged glasses...but thinking on it, there was much more that annoyed him, trivial things that itched and nicked at him. If his hair was down, that would irritate him; if his shoes were tied with one much tighter than the other, that would bother him. There were a million little things that he had to have just so or they would grate on his nerves. Such was the sacrifice of a precise, detail oriented life.

Setting his glasses aside for the time being, he removed his shirt, placing it with the rest of his clothes from the night before and moving to his closet. He kept his hand on the bed to know where it was in relation to the closet. In the dark of early morning and with his glasses off, he was effectively blind, only being able to identify the most broad spectrum of shapes, just able to make out the brown border of his closet door. Feeling out the knob, he pulled open the door, grabbing another outfit, the whole ensemble hanging off of one clothes hanger and ready for the day. He closed the closet and dressed himself, taking care to fit everything smoothly over his body, no twists in the legs of his pants or uncomfortable bunches under his arms.

Once satisfied with that, he sat on his bedside, taking the hairbrush from its place on the desk and running it through the bristly silver mane he sported. Gripping the hair past his neck behind him with one hand, he took a band from his wrist and tied it back in a tight, frayed ponytail. His bangs, not long enough to be pulled back with the rest of his hair, fell to either side of his face, hanging lower than normal without the added lift from his forehead protector. With his hair out of the way, he took his glasses once more, sliding them on and reveling for a moment in the sharpness of sight he instantly attained from gazing through the two panes of glass.

He gathered the empty hanger and his clothes from the night before in his arms before slipping out of his room, quietly locking it behind him as he made his way down the desolate hallway. Kabuto's morning began far earlier than the rest of Sound Village. He was the oil between the cogs that let the machine run smoothly, and it ran it's smoothest when his actions didn't interrupt the flow of the rest of the village. He made a fast stop by the laundry room that resided at the end of the main residential hall, dropping off his clothing and the hanger.

His top priority for the morning wasn't anything involving his particular expertise, well not in a way that most would think. He wasn't heading into the medical ward to check on any patients or to the labs to look at any specimens. The first task of his mornings wasn't anything medical, it was something that could only be described as domestic. The first task on his agenda was to get breakfast prepared for the Otokage himself, calling upon his acute knowledge of Orochimaru's habits and preferences. In a way, he was still the only one with the skills to do the task set before him to the highest degree, still requiring particular knowledge only he had.

Orochimaru was a touchy specimen at best, unpredictable and moody to the untrained eye, but Kabuto's expert observational skills coupled with the years of experience he obtained from working at his side had allowed Kabuto to pick out his habits and to make note of any triggers that might send him spiraling towards a bad mood. Once Orochimaru decided he would be in a bad mood, almost nothing could coax him from becoming broody and spiteful. An angry Otokage was bad for the village. When in a bad mood, Orochimaru would shut himself away in his room or the more private quarters of his lab to study in solitude, ignoring any responsibilities towards the village he might have to confront and leaving them for Kabuto to manage until his mood improved or otherwise taking the cruelest route in dealing with any situations that needed his attention.

Kabuto had noted in his quest to preserve the pleasant mood of his boss that he always seemed to wake in a perfectly pleasant mood. Orochimaru was, by definition and as unlikely as it might seem, a morning person. He rose each day with a smile on his face, his sleepy eyes carrying a positive outlook on the day. The trouble wasn't in putting him in a good mood; he was quite capable of doing that himself. The hardest part was getting him through the morning without that mood being shattered. In the early hours of the day, it didn't take much for that to happen. If there was a single hitch in his morning routine, that would be the end of it. However, if the good mood was preserved, only a significant amount of bad news or failure could hamper Orochimaru's pleasantness for the day.

Thus was the reason why Kabuto had taken over the breakfast routine. Orochimaru, while normally a graceful being who carried himself like a swan over water, was a terrible klutz first thing in the morning. He seemed to always manage to drop or spill or otherwise ruin something when trying to prepare his own breakfast, resulting in the aforementioned bad mood that Kabuto worked so hard to avoid having to deal with. Now, Kabuto would rise before the Otokage and prepare a meal for him, having it ready and still hot by the time he entered to enjoy it.

This morning was no different, and he went through the routine of cooking just as he did every morning. He prepared a pot of coffee, pouring a cup for Orochimaru and preparing it to his tastes: sweet with just a bit of cream but not enough to overpower the natural flavor of the beans. Bacon was fried, being it's turn in rotation as opposed to sausage, and the eggs were poached. He was always very cautious when dealing with the eggs, knowing that they were the centerpiece of Orochimaru's meal, his favorite no matter how they were styled. If the eggs were wrong, and that man knew his eggs, it could sour his mood. He finished the plate off with lightly buttered toast.

The timing worked so that by the time Orochimaru strode into the dining room, his food was already waiting at his seat, fresh from the stove and still at perfect eating temperature. Kabuto was cleaning up from preparing the food, but soon joined him. He had made himself a plate of the same foods, though his portion was notably smaller, never having much of an appetite for breakfast, preferring a larger lunch or dinner.

Orochimaru was still in the clothes he had gone to bed in, the dark kimono top with snake patterns on the sleeves and matching pants. His hair was still unbrushed and in a tangled mess behind him. It pained Kabuto to see his hair this way, knowing that when he went to brush it he would tear at the knots that formed, splitting the ends and fraying them out more rather than taking his time enough to ensure the health of each shaft was seen to. If only he would let him brush it for him. Kabuto knew he could take better care of him if only he was allowed, knowing that he would have to use the brush carefully to avoid tugging at his tender scalp, working each lock until it was sleek and smooth and caught the light when it swayed.

"Good morning, Kabuto-san." he noted politely, more so acknowledging his presence than actually wishing him well, though there was a note of something genuine, maybe making an observation about the pleasantries of the morning. His thin lips were drawn into a smile, eyes relaxed and downcast, focusing on the steam rising from his coffee cup.

"Good morning, Orochimaru-sama. I hope that everything is to your liking, though if your expression is any hint, I shouldn't think there's much to worry about." Though not always perfect in his execution, Kabuto held a confidence that he did his job well more often than not.

"Of course. You've spoiled me all these years with your cooking. I'd imagine that by now, you're as good with a spatula as with a scalpel."

A soft smile, a barely heard chuckle was his only answer. He enjoyed the banter that they shared, the small, soft jokes made at each other. They would go unnoticed and under appreciated by most, but Kabuto was always on the look out. They were both subtle creatures in the art of conversation, often times their tone taking more meaning that the words that they shared.

Kabuto picked at his plate, taking a bite only every so often and not having any real intention of eating the whole thing. His eyes, hidden by the distorting reflection of his glasses, were trained on Orochimaru. He loved watching him eat. Eating was full of small, specific motions and nuances in the body. Each slight change in the contraction or relaxation of muscle tissue left a ripple of sorts over his ivory skin, either diminishing or enhancing the shadows cast against it.

He began his observations by watching his hands. They were so well shaped, not really consumed by knuckles, but still defined at each joint by the folding of skin, creating dark grey ridges where one bone stopped and another began. The tendons that stretched from fingertip to wrist and further stood out stalk straight on the backs of his hands, casting neat lines of shadows that were only interrupted by the light blue of veins standing out against his flesh. His blood vessels were expanded, working to cool him off and making them stand out against his skin. He took note of the tension in his wrist when he raised the fork to his mouth, making his styloid process more pronounced, a small shadow being cast between it and the tendon running to his thumb.

When the food made it to his mouth, he watched the tension and relaxation of his masseter as it worked to chew whatever bit of food that had made it into the mouth, noting also the more apparent movements of the orbicularis oris, the muscles that moved the lips which never seemed to be still on that man, never totally relaxed, but always finding a new, subtle expression to hold. Whenever he swallowed, he watched paristalsis take over, moving the food into the stomach, creating a temporary lump, a roll against the smooth flesh of his neck, making his laryngeal prominence stand out more so than normal for a moment, casting a heavier shadow.

It was this time of observation that relaxed Kabuto in the morning. He could lose himself in the shifting shadows of his subject, of a man that was all lights and shadows. There was silence as Orochimaru, only half-unaware of the prying eyes on him, thought through his own agenda for the day. Kabuto let himself drift into his obsession, his apathetic stare revealing nothing of the gears that were turning under the surface. His gaze gave off no ripples to hint at the dangerous tempest festering below.


	3. Doctor by Day

With the morning taken care of and Orochimaru's happiness ensured for the time being, Kabuto was able to move on to the more clinical, the more relevant part of his profession. During the daylight hours, he was a doctor, and the primary care clinician for both Orochimaru and the Sound Four. His morning and early afternoon before lunch consisted of checking up on all important parties in the village.

First on the list was Orochimaru himself. One would think that with his own history in the fields of medicine, biology, genetics, and chemistry, he would be an easy patient. This was not always the case. There would be days when he would take his supplements without complaints, let Kabuto take his vitals and finish the checkup with minimal turbulence. However, Orochimaru was rougish in nature and his sense of humor deviated towards the mischievous or the downright devious at times.

On more than one occasion, some of which not that far from memory for Kabuto, he would refuse his medication, insisting that his current body was showing no signs of rejection and that he wouldn't be required to take such bitter pills. Kabuto knew that the only reason there were no signs of rejection was because of the very pills he was refusing to take, but the sannin would resist nonetheless, seemingly unconcerned with the potential damage he could do to himself and leaving Kabuto to worry for the both of them as he tried in vain to get the man to medicate himself.

It was a downright childish way to behave, and Kabuto was often the one left to mother a man far older than him into cooperating for the sake of his own health. They both knew that it was absurd, but it was Orochimaru's way of being playful, of creating a little bit of chaos for his own amusement at the expense of Kabuto's time and nerves. There were instances when Kabuto would be forced to drastic measures to get the supplements into his system, wrestling with the man until he was able to pinch his nose shut. When he inevitably had to breathe through his mouth, Kabuto would seize this opportunity and shove the pill as far back as he could manage, stimulating his throat muscles and holding his mouth closed until he felt it pass to his stomach.

After that, Kabuto would finish the checkup, Orochimaru's face holding a wickedly amused smile, a grin that spoke of some trivial victory that brought him more joy than it should. And really, in the end, Kabuto couldn't say that he minded it. He trusted him enough to be playful, no matter how immature it might seem. He would get to lay hands on him, feel his body's push and pull against his own as he struggled with the man. They would exchange words, sometimes even laugh together. Indeed, those setbacks were as equally enjoyable as they were annoying.

Today, however, was not one of those days. Orochimaru was on his best behavior, sitting quietly through the exam, only answering what Kabuto asked of him as he jotted down the responses of his medical record. He was sent on his way, off to manage the village. During the daylight hours, Orochimaru was a village leader, just as Kabuto was a doctor. With the most important exam out of the way, he could continue on to his next patients, the Sound Four.

He made fast work of them, figuring it had been long enough since the application of their cursed seals to discontinue the in-depth study they were a part of and simply give the m a once over. Orochimaru still wanted tabs kept on their progress both in the clinic and in the training room, but they were no longer at risk for any serious negative side effects from the seals themselves.

Jirobo was the last of the four, as he always was. Kabuto hated doing evaluations on the largest of the four. His layers of fat tissue that covered him made it difficult to identify all but the most superficial of muscles on his body. It also made monitoring his heart and lung sounds much more difficult, made even worse by the bovinian churning of his stomach that tended to drown out whatever Kabuto happened to be trying to listen for. Had this tissue not been what possessed the unique absorbing trait Jirobo exhibited, he would have forced him on a diet.

With those four out of the way, there was one final stop to be made, a stop that he hated more than where he had just come from. He moved from the standard exam rooms at the front of the medical ward back into the ICU. There, he entered the room of their longest and most enduring ICU patient.

The whirr of machinery and steady beep of vital readings filled the room in it's strange harmony. Laying on the bed in a pitiful mass was a creature that was almost impossible to discern from the yards of tubing and medical equipment that was connected to his body. There had to be a tube in every orifice: feeding tube, oxygen line, catheter, IV's stuck in what few veins remained in tact enough not to collapse. His vitals all read well below the mark of health, teetering just normal enough not to trigger any of the alarms on any of the machines that tied him to life. His pale, thinning chest rose and fell dramatically in a rhythm established by one of the monitors he was connected to. His eye lids were open just slightly, but the orbs themselves were rolled back, sightless and unconscious.

It was hard to imagine that there was a time when this husk of a shinobi had been not only the leader of Orochimaru's personal guards, able to overpower the other four's combined efforts with ease, but was to be the next host for his lord's consciousness. Illness had gradually stricken his health, making him wither away. No studies could be done to try to save him. Any attempt at exploratory surgery or a diagnostic biopsy was met with resistance from the boy's kekkei genkai, bones viciously trying to kill that which sought to invade his body. Attempts at repressing the instinctive defense proved to be failures, and he was ruled a lost cause.

What pissed Kabuto off was just that. He was a lost cause. There was nothing anyone could do for him at this point, and all efforts at saving him, at least all efforts on record, had long since ceased. If his death was so certain, why did Orochimaru still insist on fighting so hard to keep him alive? No matter how badly the boy crashed, Kabuto was still under orders to save him at all costs. Suggestions for euthanasia to put him out of his misery and to free space in the ICU were met with resistance at every step, and Kabuto lacked the authority to make the final decision on such matters. It was difficult sometimes, in the futility of everything, to not pull the plug himself.

As he did maintenance work on the boy and the machinery he was connected to, he noticed something had been placed on one of the supply cabinets closest to the boy's head. It was a small glass vase, four white lilies sticking out from the top. They were fresh cut, their flesh still firm and a pure snowy color. Orochimaru, who visited the almost always unconscious patient often, must have left them there for some reason or another, perhaps to cheer the boy up despite his grave condition. It wasn't the first time he had done it, and always lilies. Kabuto never asked why that flower in particular always ended up in that same little vase, but he thought it must have held some kind of meaning what only the giver and receiver would understand.

It was probably tied to some long gone memory of the days before the boy's illness, when he was just a child. Kabuto remembered caring for him, the first of the Sound Five. He remembered Orochimaru spending his days in the training room, teaching the boy, but more than that, he remembered the time spent together in leisure. Until sickness took him, the boy was almost always at his side, holding his hand or his sleeve as he would have his mother. Orochimaru, a man who liked his personal space in almost any other instance, seemed to beam when his attention was called to the child. He would read to him in the evenings, sometimes neglecting important lab trials for the sake of making sure the boy was sound asleep before having Kabuto catch him up on what he had missed.

On one occasion, after hours of grueling tests, sleep deprivation, and monotonous note taking all preformed in solitude, Kabuto had ventured from the labs to figure out where Orochimaru, the head of the project, had vanished to. What he found was both infuriating and absolutely expected. The sannin was in the boy's room, sound asleep with the child curled up on his stomach, one of his ivory hands resting on the boy's tiny back, a book splayed open on his lap. It was the most unprofessional thing Orochimaru had ever done in all of his years running Otogakure, and Kabuto was only thankful that with Kimimaro in the state he was in, those days were long gone.


	4. Routine BMT

He didn't take a lunch break. That probably wasn't the best for him, given he had mostly skipped breakfast, but he was losing his appetite of late. Despite his doctoral nature, he never stopped to bother and think that there might be something wrong with him. He didn't see it as a symptom, just as something that was, and he lived with it. He continued on his rounds, checking on the clinical trials, the studies that ran simultaneously in the base's experimental wing of the medical ward.

The last patient on his list was one who had just gone through intensive chemotherapy. From his chest, a central venous line protruded. He was weak now, his immune system hindered and his bone marrow destroyed. Kabuto remembered when this one was selected. He had been taken captive, oddly enough, during the siege of Rice Country as one of the only suitable shinobi for the job. He was a sturdy bodied tai jutsu user, his muscles strong and dense. They had taken him into the prison system with no real intent set out as to just what he would be used for other than the fact that killing him would be a waste of a good body. After that, the man was unimportant for years.

It was only in recent times that his prison number came up. His DNA just happened to be the best match for the purposes of their most recent experiment. He was scheduled this evening for a bone marrow transplant, not to cure any disease that he was carrying, but to help another important string of DNA escape a disease riddled body. It reminded Kabuto of parasites fleeing off of their dying host before the body was even cold, a mass exodus.

He was always thrilled for his evening job. He could shed the guise of a common doctor and take on what he felt was closer to what he really was at heart, a scientist, and experimenter, a tinkerer upon biological tissues. He and Orochimaru shared this inclination towards experimentation, and they always worked as partners upon these projects, wracking their brains and staying up late into the wee hours on nothing more than a pot of coffee and the restlessness that comes with knowing you are only inches from the answers that you seek. It was brilliant, the pair of them rattling off theories, the other always playing devil's advocate. They would continue on back and forth, defending and rebutting their claims against one another until a best course of action would become apparent to them. It was the only time he felt that there was a true bond between himself and his Lord, seeing companionship in their debate.

This particular event would be much less extravagant. There was no real, immediate mystery going on. There was no need to plan the next course of action. It was a simple, straightforward, and rather dull BMT. The procedure would be quick and not even a surgical matter. Everything was already prepared for this day. A baseline of readings had been drawn up for the patient to compare after the introduction of the new tissue, though the genetic similarity was likely to be close enough that risk of a graft rejection would be minimal. The chemo had gone as planned, and the bones were now empty and ready to accept new material through the bloodstream. With time, the marrow would be accepted by the body. After that, it was a waiting game. They would watch the subject closely for signs if infection while waiting for his immune system to recover. Once well again, they would try to see if the kekkei genkai would be expressed in the subject.

If it worked, Kabuto could finally pull the damned plug on the waste of space in the ICU, and Orochimaru would have another host, one of equal caliber to the previous, possessing the same rare trait he was seeking to preserve. The thought that Kimimaro would become useless if this process was a success filled Kabuto with the blackest of joys. No more would Orochimaru be able to leave flowers for him on the counter top. His attention would never again fall on that boy, and could be turned back to what was important.

Kabuto recalled the first time Orochimaru had ever called for a new body. It was a terrifying experience and still was despite how used to it he had grown over the years. He always let himself go so far, always held onto his bodies far longer than he should have. Too often he ended up bedridden and knocking at death's door before being placed in another host. The first time Kabuto witnessed it, he was certain that the man who had represented so much to him would be dead. He was so afraid of losing him, of being left alone once again with nothing, no guidance, no purpose. He had, towards the end and after helping Orochimaru through a particularly terrible bought of fever induced delirium, offered up his own body.

He was stunned at the man's reaction. He had laughed at the thought. Kabuto at first had thought it some kind of insult, that he wasn't good enough to be a host. Then, Orochimaru had told him he was of much greater use to him alive than as a host. Again, that was a baffling statement, but as the years have passed, he came to understand just what the man had meant. What Orochimaru really needed from him wasn't his body; it was his mind. He needed someone else to think things through with, he needed an assistant, someone to bounce ideas off of. He needed Kabuto as a whole person, another separate being to take some of the strain of running Sound Village off of his shoulders. And it was in this that he took the most pride.

Now, Kabuto knew that Orochimaru's grappling with death was simply due to his own stubbornness. He didn't want to jump bodies until the last minute, to push for every second he could get out of each host. He did things on his own time, his health be damned. Kabuto often wondered if he got some sick kicks out of being so near death, maybe from the care that he received, from the helplessness he took on? Maybe it allowed him an excuse to be mother the way he was, not to dissimilar from a boy sick in his bed, his mother bringing him soup to ease his stomach.

His train of thought was interrupted as he heard the door to the patient's room opening. In stepped his partner for the evening, Orochimaru. In the man's hands were two thick syringes full of the deep crimson bone marrow. Kabuto remembered what a pain in the ass those were to collect from the pelvis of the boy, fending off the bones that came after him as he plunged a needle far stronger than what was typically needed into the thick tissue. It had to have taken hours.

"Kabuto-san, good you're here. How is he doing?" Orochimaru looked as he often did coming into the medical ward: stripped of his uniform down to the turtleneck and pants he wore, his hair tied back in a half-assed bun. It was a good look for him. Black was always more flattering than most of what he chose to wear. Oh, if Kabuto were the one in charge of this man and hoe he dressed in public...

"He's still weak from the chemotherapy, shouldn't pose a threat to us during the procedure, but I went ahead and strapped him down anyway. We don't want any incidents, right?"

"Oh, but incidents make for better stories later." There was the usual slight purr to his voice, an edge of mischief that hinted at danger in any situation.

"Well, a lack thereof is more likely to produce successful test results."

With a slight chuckle Orochimaru agreed before approaching the subject. He took the marrow samples and attached them to the central venous catheter, the slow dribble of the samples starting to flow in, the procedure starting. "If this works, do you know the implications it could have on any and all new hosts for me?" Kabuto knew the implications very well, but simply listened on, knowing Orochimaru liked to go on about things that fascinated him. "It could mean that this kekkei genkai, once thought to be unique to only one individual, could be passed from host to host, the greatest tai jutsu weapon could be something I could hang onto forever!" There was a light in Orochimaru's eyes that Kabuto admired, the light of true passion the light of hope and excitement. It was rare that, even in these experiments, he became so animated in expressing his joy.

"The simplicity of this idea seems almost too good to be true, a simple BMT could be the answer to a years old problem."

"Oh, Kabuto-san, don't ruin my fun with talk of 'too good to be true.' It was a sound idea from the start, something that was at least worth attempting...I only applaud your bravery for being the one to collect the marrow."

"It should go on my record as at least an A rank mission. I'll be pushing for S though, I almost died on more than one occasion." He poked back, deciding to try a subtle joke.

The joke earned him a smile passing over those pale lips as a hand reached out, creamy and elegant, to run down his cheek. They were cool against the soft flesh of his face, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He could feel the callouses on the pads of his fingers, not gnarled but present from sword use. They glided smoothly from just below where his glasses rested to his chin. He could fall into that arc of touch, lean against the man and be consumed by sensation.

"What would I do without you?" came the words that accompanied the touch, so distant that they were barely heard. Kabuto met Orochimaru's eyes, noting a knowing smile on his face, a wicked gleam in his eyes. His face felt hot, and that look told him that he was aware of why. Upon realizing his understanding, the blush worsened and Orochimaru gave a soft laugh.

The BMT soon came to a close as routine as ever, thus drawing the end to another day in Kabuto's life. It was time to retire to his room and start the process over again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. But this time, he decided he might not need to pull a book from the shelf. No, this time, he already had the memory of those sweet fingers on his cheek, still so fresh he could feel ghosts of the trail they traveled on his cheek. It would be a good night, if nothing else.


	5. Plaything

Of course the BMT experiment was a failure. It had been too simple, too easy of a fix for a problem that had plagued them for years, since the first sign of the host's illness. The answer was one that might never be found, that might not even exist. To think that nothing more than a transplant of his bone marrow would be enough to manifest full-blown Shikotsumyaku was wishful thinking at best and downright foolishness at worst.

Failure in Sound Village was always greeted by the same evil that was an unhappy Otokage. Kabuto knew the man well enough to know what to expect after his hopes were dashed. His behaviors always bordered on childish ridiculousness, the result of being a creature too far adapted to being right to go unharmed when his theories are disproven. There was no real cure for his actions other than to let time ease his defeat, try to occupy his mind with something else, and tolerate his tantrums.

Kabuto knew all of this going into his morning routine. He had to be especially careful not to mess anything up, to ensure absolute fluidity in the morning routine, not for the sake of putting Orochimaru in a good mood (something that was far from obtainable in the current situation) but to prevent him from having a meltdown and throwing one of his fits. The last thing anyone needed first thing in the morning was their leader screaming over something trivial like an overdone egg or a spilled saltshaker.

Breakfast was prepared for him at the exact right moment, the plate hitting the table just as he entered, still dressed in his sleeping attire. There was no smile on his face this morning, no spring in his step. His expression was almost comedically sour, eyes cast into a glare, that unique crinkle forming across the bridge of his nose just under his brows. He silently took a heavy seat in front of his meal. His posture, dreadful even on the best of occasions, made him look to be melting in his seat. His hair fell thickly over his face as he rested his cheek on his hand. The other hand was drumming away on the table in general agitation. His tongue slipped out of his mouth, wrapping around a strip of bacon and pulling it back to whence it came. Eating without his hands, that was always a sure sign he was in a foul mood.

Kabuto remained standing close to his side in silence, waiting in case he needed anything of him. He knew better than to speak to him while he was in such a state. All he would be full of were wordless answers or sharp insults, and when he was angry, those words could cut deep. He watched as the man ate, focusing his gaze on the thick rope of muscle that worked to move the food into his mouth. It was agile, flexible. He noted that as it curled, the tension that rose under the thin membrane hinted at it's extreme strength. The tongue, for it's size, was a remarkably strong muscle, and he couldn't help but wonder what amplifying effects a tongue of that size possessed.

He should be focusing on reading Orochimaru's behaviors. He should be trying to note if he was growing more or less aggravated, but he found his focus wavering. His thoughts were turning darker, fueled more and more by his desires. The images that normally only haunted him late at night were surfacing and he was struggling to contain them...but how he wanted every part of that man inside of him. He wanted to feel him, to please him, to hear his voice praising and commanding him...

He forced those desires back where they belonged, storing away some of the more provocative images he had thought of for later use. He managed to maintain his composure as the White Snake finished his meal, getting up and silently stalking off to do whatever it was he chose to pursue while in such a fine mood. Kabuto busied himself cleaning up the kitchen before setting off to tend to his doctoral duties.

The morning routine went without a hitch, the notes he took almost exactly the same as the notes from the day before. At lunch, he made himself a sandwich and forced it down despite his appetite insisting that he wasn't hungry. Making himself eat caused his stomach to churn a bit, and he felt uneasy until the end of his break. Drinking something along with the sandwich helped some, but he still took an antacid before deciding to check in on Orochimaru.

In the early afternoon, Orochimaru had decided that the best course of action to help his bad mood was to take a nap. That was another thing he liked to do when all was not well, sleep. Kabuto supposed it was to ease the general pressures of leading that he always had on his shoulders until he was in a better temperament. It might help prevent him from making rash, foolish decisions out of spite during the course of his day.

He knocked softly at the locked door to the man's room in the deepest corner of the residential wing before pulling out his key from his pocket. He was the only one given a key into his personal chambers for when he needed to be cared for in ill health. Kabuto could come in and out as he needed to make sure he was well medicated and stable while locking out anyone else that might trouble him. He took pride in having personal access to his chambers, a place that Orochimaru considered completely private and personal. He didn't think anyone outside of them knew what the room looked like save for a few glances when someone was coming in or going out.

He slowly pushed the door open, peeking into the tiny, dark hide that he called a room. The place was absolutely claustrophobic. There was hardly any room to move between the small dresser and large four poster bed. There were no windows on the dark walls and the only light, a desk lamp, was turned off. On the bed, somewhere in the twisted mass of seemingly endless blankets, Orochimaru had curled up for his nap.

Approaching slowly, Kabuto soon spied a ghostly hand peeking out from one of the textile folds. He was able to use that landmarker to see where his shoulder was. With a careful hand, he gave the mass that approximated his shoulder a steady, slow shake. "Orochimaru-sama...You missed your lunch." He kept his voice low, not pressuring him to rise.

The hand soon clenched and stretched. The pile of blankets began to shift, and from the top of it emerged Orochimaru, first his head, then his bare torso. Kabuto softly bit the inside of his lip seeing that he was stripped to the waist to sleep. The ivory skin pulled so tightly over his lean muscles...that body that he knew so well... "Good afternoon, Orochimaru-sama."

The man's golden eyes opened to a rather alert half-mass. The drunken, seductive smile that he often sported upon waking was present, hinting that his bad mood had faded since the early morning. A low chuckle escaped his throat and the only other hint at his mischievous intentions was a sharp gaze that met Kabuto's own, the honey orbs full of sinister intent.

Before he had time to react, that pale hand shot out to him, catching his wrist and he felt himself being levered onto the bed opposite the pale figure. His body followed easily, too stunned at the realization of what was happening to him to respond with his usual instincts. One moment, he was standing beside the bed, the next he was flat on his back on top of it. The pale figure that had tossed him now loomed over him, a wicked smile dancing on his lips. "Good afternoon, Kabuto-san...Did you come here to join me?" he cooed with a soft and purring voice.

Kabuto fought to maintain his cold exterior. The man's hands were on either side of his shoulders, trapping him in. Oh, this was a position he had longed to be in for years, underneath his body, atop a bed. But, he knew that this was only one of Orochimaru's games. Kabuto was one of his favorite toys, something to batter around for a while and torment before leaving to find something else to entertain him. "No sir, I came to offer you lunch." He managed to keep his even tone, face not revealing the tempest of thoughts and emotions brewing under the surface.

"Aww, what a shame...I was just laying here, thinking of how alone I am...about how a little company would be so pleasant." At this, his hand ran down Kabuto's cheek.

"As pleasant as it would be, I'm afraid I can't stay very long...I only came to offer you something to eat..." His face was a deep shade of red, a bit of fog beginning to form in the inner edges of his glasses.

"No? You won't stay and lay with me?" At this he felt the pressure from Orochimaru's pelvis pressing subtly against his own. He could no longer speak at this point, his mind now fighting too hard to maintain control to be bothered with speech. Orochimaru, who had been waiting for an answer, realized he wasn't getting one and lowered his head down until he was nose to nose with Kabuto. "...What a shame..." he whispered, his tongue tip sliding out a bit and caressing the soft flesh of Kabuto's lower lip.

Kabuto's eyes slipped shut for a moment at the sensation, his lips parting in an instinctive invitation. Once the moist muscle retreated to it's owner's mouth, Kabuto's eyes opened back up, clearly embarrassed at the ease with which he gave into Orochimaru's will. The snake's gaze was one that understood and mocked his desires, one that was perfectly aware of the implications of his parting lips. What a wicked stare, one that sought only to humiliate.

"I think I'll get myself something to eat then..." He offered, his tone playful and light. He removed himself from the bed, pulling on a discarded shirt and leaving the room. Kabuto laid there a few moments longer before leaving to take a very quick, very cold shower.


	6. A Shameful Alternative

It was a hard night. Kabuto felt restless no matter what he tried. He was too hot, too cold, uncomfortable. Anything, any excuse for his body not to allow him to fall asleep. Though his body was presenting symptoms, he knew it was his mind that was infected. Thoughts raced through his mind and would not leave him alone, would not release him to unconsciousness.

Even though he had gone through the night's normal ritual, his body seemed to be demanding more of him. His mind haunted him with memories of his bed, the faint scent of serpent, the soft textiles beneath his body. He recalled feeling the man's core warmth against himself, the teasing, wild look in his eyes...and his tongue. That single caress was enough to plague him all night.

The hours were growing short; he had to do something to sate his urges or face total exhaustion or otherwise madness come sunrise. He needed something, some form of outlet, something more than just masturbation. That apparently wasn't going to cut it. He rose to his feet, beginning to pace around the room, thinking of a way to calm his own nerves, of something he could do to settles his desires. But the more he began to think about a way to fix his problem, the more his mind was clouded.

Rather than finding a solution, he turned to more counterproductive thoughts. Oh, that man and his body, so lean and lithe and exotic. His pale skin would glow under moonlight, standing in staunch contrast to the darkness, to the mane of silken hair on his head. He carried himself like a predator, eyes seeing the world as his playground, seeing people as his playthings.

And Kabuto happened to be his favorite. To think that one day he wouldn't stop...one day he might not walk away when it would hurt the most. Maybe if Kabuto made himself more vulnerable, acted the role of prey, he would claim him. Oh, to feel that man inside of him, to be filled with the idol he worshiped, to mutually give and receive divine pleasure! If ever he had the chance, the things he would do...the things he would want done to him...He would accept any torture the man could throw at him, endure the pain he wanted him to feel for a pleasurable reward. One word, and Kabuto was his. His mind was wild with possible commands he could be given, possible orders he would carry out and just how well he would carry them out. It was all a confused slurry of gyrating body parts and various devices he would never own up to actually knowing about.

All of this worked not to help him, but to drive him to more drastic thoughts. He had to be with him. He had to feel that man's body, had to take him in. Maybe Orochimaru wouldn't be opposed to the idea? Maybe if he begged him, he would have mercy. Surely it wouldn't be such a terrible wish to grant. He had been loyal to him for years, had tolerated his teasing and provocation for far longer than most would ever put up with it. The least he could get in return was...maybe just one night?

He pulled his pants back on and left his room behind, careful not to make a sound as he moved down the residential hall. Everyone else was fast asleep, and he didn't want to disturb them. That would lead to suspicion and maybe investigation, which was the last thing he wanted at a time like this. He wandered silently towards the deepest corner of the hall, stopping outside a shut and locked door.

Pulling out the key to Orochimaru's chamber, he slipped it into the iron lock, turning it slowly, gradually to make the click as unnoticeable as possible. He was holding his breath now, gently pushing the door open, his head craning in from behind it to glimpse the man, check for any signs that he knew he was awake. He would do it. He would beg to be fucked by that glorious creature. There was no shame in wanting someone like him, in wanting someone who treated him the way he did.

He took a step into the room, stopping and looking at the figure under the blankets. He was sleeping far more normally than he had the last time he was in that room. This time, his head and upper chest was quite visible. One arm was lazily slung over his stomach. He looked so at peace, so much more relaxed than he seemed when he was awake.

Gazing at that placid creature, he realized that what he was doing was foolish. No, he couldn't barge into his room and beg him for release. Orochimaru would humiliate him. He could imagine the terrible game he would play, taunting and teasing him until he left the room at the brink of tears. No, he fed on that kind of neediness. There was no way he could approach him in such a manner.

He slipped back out of the room, returning the door and lock back to their original state before slinking back into his room, defeated by his on cowardice...no, defeated by his own needs. He shut the door to his room and removed his pants once again and took to pacing his room in thought. He knew he couldn't approach Orochimaru, but he also knew that he needed something, anything to put him at rest or he might do something drastic as he almost had.

Something more than masturbation. It had to be more than just his own hand...There might have been a way. But was he really so desperate? Oh to go that far was absolutely shameful! It went against all that was honorable about being a shinobi, dishonoring all of the skill it would take to pull it off. Would he really stoop so low?...But he needed something.

He ceased his pacing, standing firm and trying to come to terms with what he was about to do. He knew that it was the only way he could even come close to fulfilling what he was desiring. Slowly, making the proper hand seals, he conjured a clone. Looking into his own eyes, the eyes of the clone, he questioned himself again. Would he really go through with this? Would he really stoop so low?

Shame was apparent on the faces of both him and the clone as the copy began making hand seals of its own. It was a basic technique, one he had learned and mastered years before. In a puff of smoke, the copy of himself was lost, replaced now with a form he knew better than his own. The face on the nude copy of Orochimaru was blank.

Kabuto didn't want to look at it, didn't want to think about what he was about to do, but it was the only way he could find peace. He had to resolve himself with the fact that he was desperate, that this was the only way he could find rest and keep preforming his duties as he should. He had to push his shame aside and just get it over with, find some kind of pleasure in it, perhaps.

The false object of his obsession moved towards him, backing him against the bed as he let out a final sigh of resolve. This was happening. Those pale hands found their way to his shoulders, rubbing them firmly for a moment before sliding down to the hem of his shirt, pulling it off of him. He let the copy take the lead, just as he knew the real thing would. He was stickler for accuracy in his fantasies, so why let this be any different?

Now stripped nude, he turned onto his stomach to avoid looking at the copy, trying to shun as much of the deed as he could. From behind him, he heard the soft sound of spitting before a hand coated with something warm and sticky found it's way to his entrance, causing him to shudder a bit, his body tensing before easing into the touch. Once he began to relax, he found pleasure even in the depths of his depravity.

It wasn't long before he was able to forget about being ashamed altogether. As soon as he was penetrated by that all too familiar object of his desire, or at least the next best thing, he was lost in the fantasy. To him, this was it. This was what he had wanted for so long. He was finally able to give himself entirely to the one that he served. Feeling the copy pressing deep into him sent waves of alternating pleasure and pain, the blend of the two forming something far beyond either.

Though the clone remained perfectly silent and stoic, only a prop in the fantasy, Kabuto began to vocalize his feelings on the matter. He whined and whimpered as he writhed under the grip of what he was convinced was the only man he ever loved. His body began to move against the other, begging for more. Sweat coated him, making his thick hair stick to his neck and face.

It was a blissful moment of transitioning to a higher level of ecstasy when he came, his final moan as desperate as his first had been, but twice as loud. He laid against the bed, panting for a moment before crawling into it, nestling in under the covers. Rather than canceling the technique and going to bed, the copy climbed into bed with him, wrapping its arms around Kabuto who clung longingly to it. He drifted off to sleep like that, knowing that once asleep, the technique would end, and he would wake alone.


	7. Descending

**A/N: Sorry for the long gap between uploads this time. I was really lost for this chapter. I have a direction I want to go, but until now I just didn't know how to get there. I have a much better idea of the course of action now. There isn't much plot going on in this one...mostly drabble, but hopefully it's interesting drabble. A special thanks to my writing idol, Stephen King and his wonderful book ****Misery**** for helping me get out of this slump. Annie Wilkes reminded me of Kabuto in a fiercely terrifying kind of way, especially what with her being an ex-nurse. Enjoy.**

The night he spent with the clone marked the beginning of his descent. He figured there was some slipping before, a gradual decline into the unhealthy obsession he found himself in, but that was always easy to sate. He could put it away, leave behind no traces of it, and continue about his day like any other. His words and actions never hinted at just how sick his mind was becoming. But now he was spiraling at a rather alarming rate.

He had woken up the morning after he fucked himself to sleep with a clone as he had expected: alone. In his half-awakened mind, still swimming free of the constraints that consciousness restrained it to, he could only recall falling asleep with the weight of another beside him, feeling their warmth, and knowing their scent. Before he had time to gather the full story, he recalled that it was Orochimaru, that deified creature, whom had joined him in bed.

And now...he was gone. He was gone and he was alone once more. His dulled shock gave way to a crippling and sudden depression, the memories of the night before still not complete in his mind. Orochimaru had come and taken him for the night, but wanted nothing to do with him in the morning. He had been abandoned by that which he considered the epitome of his existence, the one creature that gave meaning to his life. He served him so wholly, and still found himself cast off...alone. That was the part that hurt the worst. The warmth that he had known the night before was gone to him, leaving him cold under the sheets, without comfort, without the soothing beat of life withing another being.

He wept. The tears were quiet and thick, rolling down his cheek only to drip from his nose tip as he pressed his forehead to his upturned palms. His body trembled as it fought to stifle his emotions, trying to prevent something critical in him from breaking. Soft whimpers and long, whining noises akin to the cry of the wind escaped his lips, the sound of true longing, the sound of a need that had gone unfilled for too long.

He sat upon his bed and cried softly, trapped in a haze of depression and delusion, the true events of the evening unable to penetrate the cloud of certainty that the tears carried with them. It was only when he had dozed well past his usual waking time that a sense of urgency washed over him. Instincts created from years of living the same routine warned him that something was wrong. He checked the clock, squinting through the tears and general blur that was the world as nature intended him to see it.

His eyes shot wide when the realization of that time it was came over him. "Shit," he cursed under his breath, groping for his glassed before jamming them on his face, already halfway into yesterday's pants. He had never been ready and out the door faster.

His emotions were pushed aside for the time being. He had become an expert at shoving his own needs deep beneath a layer of professionalism, a mask of apathy that only reflected what was needed of it. As soon as it was put on, the thoughts of the previous night vanished in a dark corner of unnecessary things in the burrows of his mind. Sometime during the day, the truth of those events came to him, but he couldn't say with any certainty when this was. It wasn't an epiphany so much as it was subconscious understanding, something more akin to osmosis. The depression vanished with the understanding, and he found himself rather unconcerned with the whole ordeal. It was simply something that happened.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the utilization of the clone in putting his anxious body to rest became more and more a staple of his nightly routine. There were instances when he wouldn't touch a book on his lowest shelf, rather just stand nude as he conjured that same clone, watching it take on that same perfect form. The mannequin, as he came to think of it, was always the same silent, stoic version of the man his body craved. It never uttered a word, not even a grunt in reaction to the squirming, whining body beneath it. No matter the position, ti's movements were always the same, mechanical and uninteresting. It was simply a tool to get him off, and it behaved as such. The rest was filled in by Kabuto's vivid, depraved imagination. He filled in the lustful noises, the raspy breathing, the teasing voice that carried words of double edged praise, both pleasing and mocking.

He would always end the night wrapped tightly in the arms the the mannequin. And in the morning, he would always wake up alone. This always brought with it the cloud of depression. There were a few occasions where he had cried as he had the first night, but these were early on and soon his tears stopped altogether. The crippling loneliness never went away, but the numbing depression did. He was able to function without a hitch once more.

The only side effect to this seemed to be the new manifestation that the loneliness decided to take. Rather than a numb cloud that made him feel thick and heavy, he was left with a hollow space within him. He felt it most potently in his chest, a sensation that reminded him of wind passing through a dark trench, giving only the faintest whistle as it billowed past the open spaces between great crags.

There were times when this emptiness felt like a vacuum, a silent black hole, drawing in all other thoughts and feelings until he felt like a hollow doll, only the mask of apathy, the face 'I'm alright' persisted beyond the gaping maw of unfilled need. During these times, he could still function, but his mask was paper thin, and he was always afraid that he might break open, that some of his desires might become apparent in his actions, might begin to adversely effect his behavior in a way that might get attention called to him.

The only time the emptiness was anything but void was when the object of his desire was present. Seeing Orochimaru, hearing him, even something as small as catching a faint whips of his scent was enough to light the emptiness ablaze. Whatever it was made from, it was certainly combustible. He was consumed in white hot flames, flames that made his thoughts erratic and caused his body to sweat with insatiable emotion. Those flames, he felt and he knew, were dangerous. They whispered to him in their soft, seething crackling. They told him to take what he wanted. They told him to not let Orochimaru get away. When he was teased, he felt his fingertips itch with the urge to reach out for the man, to hold him by the arms, press his lips to his own, to coil his legs around his waist and trying to press their bodies into one.

The emptiness he could live with. He could keep himself in check and ensure that his mask never faltered when it came to hiding the gaping hole in his chest. But those flames were dangerous. They grew more intense as time passed, their demands became harder to ignore. He found himself agreeing with them more than resisting at times, and those were the most threatening of all.

The only thing that prevented him from acting on those impulses what that he understood the futility of it. Orochimaru was no fool, and he was certainly no pushover. If he didn't want him, there was nothing Kabuto could do about it. He would be dispatched in an instant. And after that? No doubt mocked. His desires would be stripped bare in front of the one he fought to hide them from the most. They would be revealed and laughed at. The most honest part about him would be a joke to the man he considered waking perfection. That was his biggest fear, what prevented his itching fingers from moving to grip pale flesh.

But the flames only grew hotter, and their demands would need to be met. Soon.


	8. The Will to Live

**A/N: Kind of a weird chapter. I dunno how I feel about it, but this is what came out. Let me know what you think. Thank you all for following me this far. I feel that there are only a few more chapters left in this one. I hope I'm doing a good job on the plotting so far. Please, enjoy.**

If Orochimaru was aware of Kabuto's intrusion on that lonesome night, he never confronted him directly. Though that meant next to nothing. It wasn't his style to come right out with something like that, not normally. He would hang onto that damning knowledge and tease you with it for as long as he could manage. He would savor making you sweat and wonder whether or not he knew, and when you were certain he knew, he would keep going, taunting you with exposing your secret. The stress wouldn't be as severe as a single confrontation, but it would be much more drawn out. That was what he liked. It was more subtle, more lasting.

These facts were what made Kabuto suspicious of almost every comment that left Orochimaru's lips towards him. If Orochimaru did know, then Kabuto was definitely giving him what he wanted. Any mention of his room or of Kabuto's personal life caused him to tense ever so slightly, stress perspiration threatening to form, making his hands clammy and thick feeling. No confrontation ever came of it, nor did anything apparent enough to say for certain that he knew, so Kabuto remained on edge.

This nervousness crept into his daily life. Sleep came to him later and later in the night, until it was regularly not arriving until the smaller hours of the morning. He still trekked on each morning, painfully aware of the sleep he was losing, but fighting off any signs of fatigue. He began losing himself in certain tasks, seeming to work automatically. His mind would drift away from some trivial task, cleaning his tools or organizing files in the record room, only to come back to him after a few hours had passed and his job was mysteriously and meticulously completed.

But he knew that he could do nothing about it. He couldn't draw the attention of Orochimaru to the problem. These symptoms were trivial compared to the importance of the work at hand. As it were, Orochimaru would have no solution for him. He would only mock him, laughing at his desires, at his needs. He would toy with him all the more fiercely. He could see it now, the long, graceful fingers reaching out to pin his wrists, the bump from his hips that would toss him against the nearest wall...the pale lips drawn just close enough to catch the heat from his breath...and in one motion, he would be gone, leaving him empty. As everything seemed to.

His spirits were failing him. While he could normally be cheerful in his work, even in the mundane physician's role he found himself in, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find joy even in his personal work with Orochimaru. His life seemed a pointless collection of disappointments and unfulfilled desire. He rose every morning knowing that what he truly wanted, he could never have. Despite how close he was, he had hit the glass ceiling, and nothing could break it. His tasks he now preformed with the bitterness of someone who felt stagnated in their job, of someone who continues to work only because it is what is expected of them.

A particularly dark day led him into the ICU, to the room of his least favorite patient. The boy, no, the sick and dying shell of what once might have been a boy, still sat in it's near lifeless state. The steady beep of machinery told the same story. He was alive, but little else. His weight had dropped yet further. He was wasting away, not even the pinnacle of medical assistance able to relieve him of the fate nature had chosen for him.

And why should he be relieved? Even if he was cured at this point, would he ever be anything but a shadow of the force he once was? When he had first seen the boy, he was overjoyed that such an amazing host had been attained. He had tolerated the training and time that Orochimaru devoted to the boy, understanding the need to ensure he was perfectly prepared to become his new body. He had even suppressed his rage at the apparent fondness Orochimaru held for him and of the familial bond he had formed with him. It was always something temporary, and he held onto the knowledge that one day the boy would be only a memory, only another form of his master.

But those days were gone. He was useless now. He was a tool that had broken, some cheaply made knockoff unfit for such a huge task. Keeping him alive made about as much sense as holding onto a screwdriver with a broken head. It might once have had a job to fill, but now it was no good to anyone and only taking up space.

Kabuto stared intently at the boy. Moments stretched into what felt like hours as he stared, thinking on why the boy was alive and all the reasons why he shouldn't be. The boy was conscious or as close to it as he could manage with mechanical assistance. Pale eyes stared dully back into his beetle black gaze, obscured by the shine on his glasses and hiding only faintly that he was gone once more. He was untethered from the passage of time, left only in the drab and thick cloud of his mind.

Why should this boy be alive? There was no reason to it. After a false eternity, he came back from the cloud, his mind suddenly clear. He shouldn't. The boy shouldn't be alive. And maybe he thought the same thing. Maybe he had finally resolved that he would die. Many terminal patients asked for death well before it was finally due. Once they accepted their fate, they almost couldn't wait to greet it. Surely he would be the same.

He approached the respirator, the machine that pumped air into lungs that had long since quit doing their job. It hummed steadily as it went about it's job of keeping the dead alive a little longer. A single clear tube of air ran from it into the nasal passage of the boy, a lifeline that long since should have been cut. Taking the tube in his fist, he curled it around a few of his fingers several times, bending and looping it in ways that created hard kinks in it. The air ceased making it's way to the boy.

This didn't go without notice. Kabuto watched, eager to see the life slowly leave the body of one who wasn't worth the love he received from a man as great as Orochimaru. He had spent years of his life in service and eager devotion to that man, only to be outshone by someone who couldn't live up to his expectations. The boy's eyes went wide when the air ceased filling his lungs, and his mouth opened, mutely gaping for air, shifting the tubes that ran into it.

Kabuto felt numb. He felt nothing; he thought nothing. All he did was observe. Once and for all, things would be set right. The boy would no longer live. Orochimaru would no longer waste his energy on a lost cause, and there would be none he cared for more than him, none that stole away his attention with such ease. His jealousy would terminate with this boy's body.

But the boy was not done with life. He saw a withering hand raise from the bed, fingers outstretched. Bone began jutting from it, forming a sign of fight. This would not do. If he fought, signs of a struggle would be apparent. Kabuto would have been found out. It wasn't the punishment that he feared, if indeed there would even be any. What made him nervous was the disapproval he would receive. He had to paint himself in the best of pictures in Orochimaru's mind, and all the good he had worked for could be cast off with this once incident.

He released the tube, air beginning to flow back into the lungs of the invalid once more. There was a look of relief in the boys eyes, a sort of gratefulness that he had been allowed to live even a few moments longer. The boy still had the will to live, so he would live for now. But Kabuto would check on him again at a later date, check on him again and again, test him...and wait for the day when the will to live ran out, and he was ready to accept what was a long time coming.

He doubted Kimimaro would tell anyone about the incident. He wasn't the type to talk of problems that were his own to other people, and speech was all but impossible for him at this point anyway. However, should he be questioned for whatever reason, he could always lie. He was very good at that...something of a specialty. After all, was that not his whole life? Yes, all that Kabuto was at this point, all that anyone knew of him, was a lie. To show what he really was at this point would be to unleash something truly ugly, a great cesspool of need, of depravity, of sexual tension and obsession that would have driven a lesser man to death by his own hand long ago.

But not Kabuto. He was stronger than that. And for another day, his mask would hold. For another day, he would go about his day with that same clinical nature he had become known for, doing his tasks with the same efficiency as always. He would return to his room and fantasize things that were slowly driving him mad. And in the morning, he would rise to do it again.


End file.
